1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facility search apparatus and method for searching for nearby facilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a conventionally known navigation system with a function to search for facilities that are within a desired category and are located around, for example, the vehicle's location specified as a search point (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-101462, in particular, pages 3 to 5 and FIGS. 1 to 9). In this navigation system, the selection of a desired category by the user allows searching for facilities within the category.
In the navigation system disclosed in the above-described document, if, as a result of a search by category, no facility is found nearby, the user expands the search area to perform further searching until a certain number of facilities are retrieved. The user may travel to a retrieved facility if it is located, for example, within about 10 km from the search point. However, the user may not travel to the facility if it is located farther than that. In this case, for example, the user changes the category to search for other facilities. In the known navigation system, as described above, it cannot be determined, until a search is actually executed, whether or not there is any facility within a predetermined distance from the search point. If no facility is found within a predetermined distance, the user must return to a category selection screen to select a category again and wait every time until the search result is obtained. Such an operation is cumbersome and takes time until a desired facility is retrieved. In particular, in a communication navigation system sending a search request via a network connection to a map distribution server or the like, search data is sent and received at relatively low speed using a cellular phone. Since required data is sent and received every time a cumbersome operation as described above is performed, it takes considerable time until the final search result is obtained.